10 Best Geek Movies for a Cozy Night In

December 21, 2009

Chances are you’re going to find yourself with some down-time over the holidays. Sure, you could go for a jog/swim/insert other energetic activity but let’s face it, after all that turkey and egg nog what you’ll really fancy is a semi-snooze on the sofa as you strain to watch some TV over your bloated belly.

Ever at your service, we’ve pulled together a list of what we consider are ten great geek films. We’ve left out anything adapted from a video game (they are almost all universally rubbish anyhow) and anything featuring robots, Vulcans, Jedis, and Keanu Reeves as too obvious to waste space on the list, focusing instead on computer-related flicks.

So, without further preamble, here are 10 great movies to geek out to over the holidays – so grab your popcorn and enjoy.

Tom and Jerry, Popeye and Pluto, Steve and Bill. The duo that changed the computer industry forever are pitched against each other here in a made-for-TV movie following their intertwined early years. Enjoy Woz and be sure to look out for a young Steve Ballmer.

Gibson-gulping, pizza-eating Sandra Bullock wishes she never hit control and shift in this cinematic outing that sees her identity stolen by the evil digital elite as she uncovers a plot as improbable as her casting.

“Their only crime was curiosity.” Well, that and really bad hair. Offering up a rad baddie that rides a skateboard despite being middle-aged, the prevalence of floppy disks in the film alone will make you nostalgic for the days of dial-up.

Lovable nerd Matthew Broderick nearly starts World War III in this geek classic that sees his teenage hacker taking on WOPR, NORAD’s supercomputer, in a “game” involving nuclear missiles and the potential annihilation of the planet.

“I’ve never knowingly slept with a Windows user.” For some an operating system is a tool, for others it’s a way of life. This documentary follows the latter. Compelling, whether or not you subscribe to the cult of Mac.

Geek cinema goes all-star with this hacker slash conspiracy flick that features, among others Robert Redford, River Pheonix and Dan Akroyd as just a few of the stars discovering secrets about a “black box” they think the NSA has hired them to retrieve. Needless to say, all is not as it seems.

Tim Robbins takes a thinly-veiled turn as a sinister Gates figure heading up the NURV corporation where idealistic programmer Ryan Phillipe gets hired after college. If you like your geeks glossy and your plots full of holes, then this one’s for you.

So Eighties it’s almost painful to watch at times, Electric Dreams offers a plethora of gadgets from the decade as well as a self-aware “Pinecone” PC that forms one point of a love triangle. Will the geek get the girl? You’ll have to watch it to find out…

We’re taking you back a ways with this 1969 movie that sees a very young Kurt Russell get an electrifying experience that gives him the brain of a computer, hence the tennis shoes reference of the clumsy title. The tech is sooo dated, it’s a little like a history lesson too.

We’ve saved the best for last. A cult classic, Office Space’s geek credentials come from the plot line that sees disenfranchised cubicle-dwellers create a virus-like snippet of software to rip off the company for a bunch of money, but the whole show is stolen beautifully by Milton and his attachment to his red stapler.

Impressive for its measly $7,000 budget, this recent cult classic follows a mind-bending story about a group of hackers who accidentally build a time machine. It’s so confusing it’s sure to make you wish you could go back in time yourself and ask Santa for the foresight never to try to understand how the plot of this head scratcher works.